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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27619757">No, By All Means Fear the Reaper</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman'>TheSaddleman</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who, Doctor Who &amp; Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Breaking the Fourth Wall, Chili Peppers, F/M, Friendship, Hallucinations, Humour, Three Stooges - Freeform, Weirdness, a bit of angst, continuity cavalcade, dancing devils - Freeform, omniscent narrator, spoilers for Doctor Who Series 8 and 9 episodes, whouffaldi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:42:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,660</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27619757</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Clara Oswald sees a trio of twerking dancing devils that resemble the Three Stooges, she realizes that the hot pepper challenge she and the Doctor are taking has gone off the rails.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Twelfth Doctor &amp; Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>No, By All Means Fear the Reaper</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Be warned, this is a weird one. It's set midway through Series 9. That's all I'm giving you right now other than an apology for the mental image that the story will invoke in its introduction. Imagine how it feels from this side...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Clara Oswald knew she was in for a bad day when she saw the dancing devils.</p><p>The worst part? The devils in question weren’t even particularly good dancers, and the only dance style they seemed to know was, sigh, twerking.</p><p>Oh, and did I mention the dancing devils also happened to look like the Three Stooges?</p><p>You’re welcome.</p><p>But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Just as Clara spent much of her life travelling back and forth through time, this is also a luxury afforded the reader of these chronicles.</p><p>The twerking dancing devils can wait. But they’re coming; you have been warned…</p><p>***</p><p>“Are you sure you want to go through with this, Clara?”</p><p>“Yes, Doctor.”</p><p>“This could change your life in ways you simply cannot imagine.”</p><p>“I’m prepared to take that risk.”</p><p>“You sure? Others have tried and failed. One brave soul even compared the experience to biting the toe of Satan.”</p><p>“I don’t fear the Reaper, Doctor. Do you?”</p><p>The setting: a stark wooden table on the mezzanine level of a circular room lined with bookshelves and blackboards, overlooking the central control console of the time ship known as the TARDIS. </p><p>The table has two armless wooden chairs placed on opposite sides. One is occupied by a striking, grey-haired, owl-faced man in a purple velvet coat, his intense eyebrows aimed at his competitor seated directly across from him: a petite, beautiful woman with large, expressive brown eyes and medium-length dark hair tied into a loose pony tail. </p><p>The man is the Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey located in the constellation of Kasterborous. The woman is the aforementioned Clara Oswald, a teacher from the planet Earth located in Mutter’s Spiral (a.k.a. the Milky Way).</p><p>Placed in front of each individual is a dainty Portmeirion china saucer. In the middle of each saucer sits a small, shrivelled object vaguely resembling a banana that’s been hit by a tissue-compression eliminator. Both the Doctor and Clara wear blue rubber safety gloves on their right hands.</p><p>To Clara’s left: a two-litre bucket of vanilla ice cream, slowly melting (though, while the ice cream itself may or may not be mentioned later, the fact it is slowly melting will not, so this is a piece of information that may be safely discarded). To the Doctor’s left: a two-litre plastic jug of whole milk; being already liquefied, melting is not an issue, though it is slowly warming (again, this is a fact that may be disregarded henceforth, other than noting for future reference that the Doctor prefers his milk to be ice-cold, suggesting that the experience of drinking said liquid may provide him with a below-par experience on this occasion). </p><p>The Doctor moves his hand towards the glass.</p><p>“Don’t you dare, Doctor—no cheating,” Clara says ominously, a wicked glint in your eye. The Doctor’s hand stops its milkward progression and resumes its previous orientation. “No milk and no ice cream allowed until thirty seconds have passed. And you’ll be begging me for my ice cream inside a minute, I promise you.”</p><p>The Doctor’s Scottish-accented voice rumbles: “Bring it on, tiny human.”</p><p>With a steady, gloved hand, Clara takes the sad-looking item by its stem (you’d be sad, too, if you were reduced to looking like a banana that’s been hit by a tissue-compression eliminator). The Doctor mirrors her actions, studying his object with hawk-like eyes.</p><p>“You know, Clara, there are easier ways to win a bet,” he says. Said bet is of little consequence, other than to note the shared imbibing of one or two bottles of Chablis during a picnic in Central Park circa 1925 and a random discussion about human-versus-Time Lord taste buds might have played a factor. </p><p>“But this is going to be a lot more fun,” Clara says. “You’re talking to someone who has been banned from taking the Staff Mega Sour Candy Challenge at Coal Hill School because I am unbeatable.”</p><p>“There is no such competition. Call yourself professional educators?”</p><p>“Once class lets out on Friday, you’d be surprised what we get up to. Armitage doing Elvis karaoke is a sight to behold, especially given our staff room doesn’t actually have a karaoke machine.”</p><p>The Doctor studies the tiny object again, trying to ignore the fact it is making his fingertips tingle a bit, even though the glove. “So, allow me to get this straight: you were born without pain receptors in your mouth?”</p><p>“No, I’m part-Scottish. We’re bred for this sort of thing.”</p><p>The Doctor cocks an eyebrow. “You do know I’m Scottish, right?”</p><p>Clara laughs. “Only in attitude, my friend. Ready?”</p><p>The Doctor holds the object up as he prepares to ingest it, and then looks at Clara. “<em>A hunka-hunka Burning Love</em> or <em>You ain’t nothin’ but a Hound Dog</em>?”</p><p>“Sorry?”</p><p>“Armitage. What did he sing at Elvis karaoke?”</p><p>“Quit stalling, Time Lord—you’ll have plenty of ‘burning love’ before long. On the count of three. One, two…”</p><p>The competitors raise the Carolina Reaper peppers to their mouths and bite about a half-inch off of the tip of each. They chew for a moment, and then swallow. The couple calmly replaces the remainders of their peppers on their saucers, and then waits.</p><p>***</p><p>Named the hottest chili pepper in the world in 2013 by <em>Guinness World Records</em>, the Carolina Reaper, developed by an industrious fellow from South Carolina named Mr. Ed Currie, comes from the <em>Capsicum chinense</em> plant. At the time of its first cultivation, it was the latest in a line of increasingly hotter chili peppers that had been developed over the preceding decades, exceeding even the intensity of the infamous ghost pepper and the Trinidad Scorpion. </p><p>Don’t ask why they did this. This is Earth we’re talking about, remember? Maybe there was a race to see who could come up with the most terrifying name, or who could be the first to develop a pepper capable of making a person’s head explode like Louis Del Grande’s noggin in the movie, <em>Scanners</em>.</p><p>The reason for this somewhat macabre comparison comes down to heat that, in peppers, is measured on the Scoville scale; this is <em>perceived</em> heat we’re talking about, not the type of heat you might experience if you were to swallow a burning match or a piece of smoldering coal nicked from a fireplace. Though, to some, the experience is comparable.</p><p>The mighty habanero, a pepper known to drive some unsuspecting diners to want to throw themselves into the nearest body of water and open their mouths, rates a not-unsubstantial 350,000 Scoville units. Then there is a popular brand of hot sauce that actually comes with a warning on its Amazon listing that it “can <em>not</em> be directly consumed without harm to humans,” and has been known to be provided at some restaurants only after the diner has signed a waiver, and even then it’s applied to food using an <em>eye-dropper</em>. That ranks at 500,000 Scoville units. </p><p>That’s kid’s candy compared to the Carolina Reaper. Try 1.6 <em>million</em> Scoville units for that monstrosity.</p><p>Paging Mr. Del Grande.</p><p>Carolina Reapers have been described by survivors as having a taste somewhere between fruity and molten lava. Let’s find out where it ranks for our heroes as those thirty seconds eluded to approximately seven hundred and ten words ago tick on.</p><p>***</p><p>“You know, this is actually quite tasty, Clara,” the Doctor says, licking his lips. “Kind of fruity.” </p><p>Clara nods, much to her surprise, given she had been expecting … well, something else. Molten lava, possibly. “You’re right. Not bad. Did we actually buy the right ones? Where did I drop the bag?” </p><p>“Did you know chili peppers are actually considered a fruit?” the Doctor says, entering small-talk mode. </p><p>“No, I didn’t. Not sure if I’d want to put any in a pi-OH MY GOD!” Clara’s eyes widen. “You’ve turned purple!”</p><p>“What do you mean, <b>Clarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……….</b>”</p><p>
  <em>Doctor, what’s happened to your voice? What’s happened to your feet? They’re gone!</em>
</p><p>
  <b>Feet? Why Clara, you know perfectly well that purple elves have no feet.</b>
</p><p>
  <em>Doctor?</em>
</p><p>Suddenly, he is gone. So, for that matter, is the TARDIS. Clara looks around and sees nothing but a black void, just before she lands on her backside, as her chair has also disappeared. She stands up, ruefully rubbing her bruised tailbone. Her field of vision is then dominated by the appearance of a leather wallet the size of a large 4K flat-screen TV, levitating in the air. It slowly opens up to reveal a blank, white piece of paper the size of a concert poster turned sideways.</p><p>
  <em>What’s happening, Doctor? The psychic paper isn’t supposed to be that big!</em>
</p><p>Words begin to appear on the paper, scrawled as if by a child’s hand:</p><p>
  <b>I went to school the other day<br/>
To write an English test.<br/>
I sat beside my closet friend.<br/>
She knew the answers best!</b>
</p><p>A signature appears under the doggerel: “Courtney Woods.”</p><p>
  <em>Courtney, you will not cheat on another exam!</em>
</p><p>Clara is in the middle of her classroom, a yardstick in her hands. Two dozen students fill the desks in front of her, not a single one paying attention to her. Clara pivots on her heel and slaps the yardstick across the blackboard, making a cracking sound that cuts through the still air.</p><p>
  <em>Are you listening to me?</em>
</p><p>Clearly not. Courtney and her cronies just keep murmuring to each other: <b>Pineapple watermelon pineapple watermelon pineapple watermelon.</b></p><p>A narrator, whose voice sounds very familiar, breaks in: “According to Marvel comic books, ‘pineapple watermelon’ is the best way to simulate the murmur of a crowd. At least that’s true … in the Twilight Zone.”</p><p>Clara turns toward the source of the voice and, instead of seeing Rod Serling standing there, it is a tall blonde woman in a red and white, 1930s-style messenger uniform. </p><p>
  <b>Telegram for Clara Oswald!</b>
</p><p>
  <em>Uh, that’s me.</em>
</p><p>The woman holds out her hand. Clara takes it.</p><p>
  <b>Don’t shake my hand, you idiot. This is C.O.D.</b>
</p><p>
  <em>I didn’t order fish.</em>
</p><p>The messenger rolls her eyes. </p><p>
  <b>Can’t you read? That’s an acronym. Means ‘cash on delivery.’</b>
</p><p>
  <em>Oh. Uh, how much?</em>
</p><p>
  <b>One hard-boiled egg.</b>
</p><p>
  <em>But I don’t have a-</em>
</p><p>The messenger reaches behind Clara’s ear and withdraws one hard-boiled egg. Satisfied, she throws the egg over her shoulder (it makes a satisfying <em>splat!</em> as it obliterates itself on the blackboard). The woman then pulls a miniature harmonica out of the breast pocket of her uniform, toots a shrill note through it, and takes a deep breath.</p><p>
  <em>What are you doing?</em>
</p><p>This interrupts the woman’s deep breathing for a moment. She looks down on Clara with a condescending expression.</p><p>
  <b>This is a <em>singing</em> telegram.</b>
</p><p>Clara suddenly feels like a no-class heathen. But the last thing she wants is to hear anyone singing. <em>Especially</em> a telegram.</p><p>
  <em>Can’t you do this outside? Preferably three blocks down the street outside?</em>
</p><p>
  <b>I work better with an audience.</b>
</p><p>Clara looks back at her students. Only they aren’t there anymore. In fact, she isn’t even at Coal Hill School anymore; instead Clara is standing on the stage at the Old Vic. And instead of rowdy teenagers sit hundreds of finely dressed patrons of the arts. A few of them even look familiar. Is that the guy from <em>Spaceballs</em> sitting next to Burt Reynolds’ girlfriend from <em>Smokey and the Bandit</em>? What are they doing there?</p><p>
  <b>A-hum…<em>mi mi mi mi</em>….</b>
</p><p>The messenger blows into the business end of the harmonica a second time to set the key. And then she proceeds to sing in a completely different key:</p><p>
  <b>Dear Miss Oswald,<br/>
Hope to hear you’re well.<br/>
Even more sorry to tell you,<br/>
Your pilot did not sell.<br/>
We know you’re not an also-ran<br/>
When it comes to acting well<br/>
But when it comes to playing Australian<br/>
You go straight to bloomin’ hell!<br/>
Love, the BBC!</b>
</p><p>She holds the note on the final C for what seems like an eternity. The audience rises to its feet for a rapturous ovation as the messenger takes a deep bow and blows kisses at them. </p><p>Clara is mortified. Not even the Doctor knows about the time when she was sixteen and a producer who liked the cut of her jib (the producer’s words, not Clara’s and certainly not mine) invited her to try acting in a sitcom pilot. They wanted her to play an Australian for some reason. The pilot failed and a critique of her performance afterwards likened her accent to Dick Van Dyke filtering cockney through autotune. </p><p>It was the most embarrassing moment of her life and she’d never been able to even mention it to the Doctor, Danny, her dad or anyone else. Except Gran, but then Gran thought everything Clara did was perfect. Bless.</p><p>As the applause continues without let-up, Clara can do nothing but smile nervously and wish for a trap door to open up beneath her feet and send her plunging into the abyss.</p><p>Which is why, when a trap door opens up beneath her feet and sends her plunging into the abyss, Clara’s response is closer to the “Thank God” end of  the “Thank God – ARRRRRGH!” scale.</p><p>***</p><p>Fortunately for Clara, a fifty-foot-deep pile of rubber chickens breaks her fall. Not the screaming kind of rubber chicken this time, fortunately; she’s been there, done that. (Long story; ask the Cybermen.)</p><p>
  <em>Doctor, what’s happening?</em>
</p><p>Half-buried as she is beneath the rubber novelty items, Clara cries this out into the darkness, but hears nothing in reply. </p><p>Well, not a reply in terms of a Scottish-accented voice calling back, anyway. What she does hear are footsteps coming closer. Loud footsteps. The type of footsteps made by heels adorning feet the approximate length and breadth of a Hummer. </p><p>For a moment, Clara worries that she might be about to get stomped on by some giant alien.</p><p>Said giant feet stop in front of Clara, who is still trying desperately to extricate herself from the pile of rubber chickens and uttering some vintage Blackpudlian words that are not suitable for a General Audiences rating in the process. Her gaze follows the trouser-covered legs attached to the feet a good twenty to thirty feet up, until she finally sees a familiar face looming over her. </p><p>
  <em>Missy? What the hell are you doing here? And how did you get so big?</em>
</p><p>
  <b>I’ve always been huge, my dear. You’re the one who’s tiny.</b>
</p><p>Clara finally manages to free herself from the pile of rubberized, simulated, non-screaming <em>gallus gallus domesticus</em> and straightens out her clothing as she gets to her feet. </p><p>
  <em>If that’s meant to be a crack about my height, it is not appreciated. Did you do something to the pepper that I hate? I mean, that I ate?</em>
</p><p>(For a moment, Clara is certain she hears a faint voice in the background saying, “Damn you, auto-correct.”)</p><p>The giant Missy shrugs.</p><p>
  <b>What makes you think <em>I</em> did anything? And why blame a defenseless little pepper that looks like a banana after my tissue-compression eliminator has had its way? Maybe the time has finally come for you to lose your mind and the pepper just gave you a little push. Do you honestly think I’d invade your subconscious wearing trousers and <em>this</em>?</b>
</p><p>Missy points to her head and Clara notices for the first time that the Time Lord is wearing a poo emoji hat. The sight causes Clara to burst out laughing.</p><p>
  <em>Looks good on you. So it was the pepper … is the pepper. I’m hallucinationing, that’s it. I mean, I’m hallucinating. Why can’t I speak properly?</em>
</p><p><b>Maybe this is the way you normally speak, but because you’re supposed to be God’s gift to English teachers, you just became really good at faking it.</b> </p><p>
  <em>So none of this is real, then. You’re not real.</em>
</p><p>Giant!Missy looks relieved.</p><p>
  <b>That so? Well, thank heavens for that. I’m annoying enough when I’m normal-sized. Tootle-oo!</b>
</p><p>The giant apparition of Missy blows a raspberry and vanishes into thin air, leaving Clara by herself in the dark void and feeling rather lonely. Not even the ridiculous experience of having Missy’s giant and now-unadorned poo emoji hat land on top of her, knocking her back to the floor, is enough to cheer her up. She pushes the hat to one side and stands up again.</p><p>
  <em>OK, so once you’re in an hallucination, and you know it’s an hallucination, how do you get out?</em>
</p><p>She tries pinching herself, but can’t get a purchase on her forearm—it is as if she’s lost control of her fingers. She suddenly finds herself walking away from the big silly hat and the even sillier giant pile of rubber chickens, yet she doesn’t remember consciously setting out for a walk.</p><p>Clara is nearly bowled over when Frank Sinatra roars past at high speed on a bicycle, singing <b>I did it myyyyy waaa<em>aaay</em></b> as his voice Doppler-effects into the distance.</p><p>Clara watches the crooner disappear into the void for a few moments, shrugs, then moves on. There is very little left that can surprise her at this point.</p><p>And that is when she sees the trio of dancing devils blocking her way. Remember the dancing devils? You have been warned.</p><p>One has to wonder what type of dancer a devil would actually make. With their forked tails, they do make an ungainly lot. And, while pitchforks do allow for a bit of pole dancing-style action mixed with slapstick when they accidentally stick them into a fellow dancer’s toes, the last thing Clara Oswald or your imagination needs right now is the image of miniature versions of Moe, Larry and Curly dancing around in devil costumes (Shemp, Joe and Curly-Joe stayed home and Emil wasn’t invited). Problem is, the heroine of our story is under the influence of some mind-altering hot pepper, so what we want doesn’t count. </p><p>And if you remember how this tale began, you know what’s coming next. Antacids at the ready.</p><p>The devil on the far right (I’ll let you choose the Stooge) grabs hold of its pole and points its backside in Clara’s general direction…</p><p><em>Wait, oh no no no—are you twerking? Please, no! My eyes! Stop that right now! I mean it!</em> </p><p>Clara’s best schoolteacher voice has no impact as Devil Number 3 ignores her and keeps on twerking and Devils number 1 and 2 soon join in.</p><p>It is at this point that Clara Oswald has finally had enough. It is fortunate for this chronicler that, among her many abilities, breaking the fourth wall isn’t one of them, otherwise she might have reached through the screen and slapped some sense into him. Instead, she looks to the ceiling/sky/endless void above her head.</p><p>
  <em>No! No no no no no! I will not hallucinate pole-dancing, twerking devils that look like the Three Stooges. I refuse! If this is my hallucination, then I call the shots. I want the Doctor with me, and I want him here right now!</em>
</p><p>She looks back to ground level and, to her relief, the devils and their impromptu burlesque show have vanished. In their place is a short (but also full-sized, so not a devil), dark-haired man sitting cross-legged on the ground, an umbrella with a question mark-shaped handle draped across his knees and wearing a faded Panama hat.</p><p>Clara rolls her eyes. </p><p>
  <em>Wrong Scottish Doctor!</em>
</p><p>The seventh Doctor looks downcast. </p><p>
  <b>Oh, bother.</b>
</p><p>
  <em>No offence.</em>
</p><p>Clara waves her arm and the seventh Doctor turns into another Doctor. And then another. And then another. Clara keeps dismissing them.</p><p>
  <em>No, too young ... You remind me too much of Moe and I’m still traumatized ... You have the same dress sense, but no ... I want that scarf, but no ... Celery always gets stuck in my teeth; pass ... What the hell are you wearing?</em>
</p><p>And it goes on from there.</p><p>Eventually, a deceptively young-looking man in a bow-tie appears. </p><p>
  <em>Oh. Hi.</em>
</p><p>
  <b>Clara! My Clara!</b>
</p><p>The eleventh Doctor, beaming, approaches to give Clara a hug, but she steps back, remaining out of reach. He looks crestfallen.</p><p><em>Oh no, I’m not playing that game. I am not going to turn this hallucination into some angst-filled game of </em>This Was My Life<em>. I refuse to be drawn into that. I want to see the Doctor I am with now.</em></p><p>“I’m proud of you, Clara. Most humans can’t manage lucid hallucinations without melting their pudding brains.”</p><p>The eleventh Doctor’s mouth is moving, but the voice is not his. That Doctor never called anyone “pudding brains” and he definitely never spoke with a Scottish accent.</p><p>For the first time since whatever-the-hell-this-is began, Clara’s face splits into a grin.</p><p>The eleventh Doctor lets out a huge sneeze and instantly transforms into the twelfth Doctor.</p><p>“Hello, stranger,” he says, sniffling from the sneeze.</p><p>
  <em>Bless you. You’re probably not real, either, I know, but I could really use your help here.</em>
</p><p>“Who says I’m not real? I feel real.”</p><p>
  <em>You’re a figment of my imagination. Something in that pepper I ate, that we both…</em>
</p><p>Her eyes widen.</p><p>
  <em>Are you hallucinating, too? Did the pepper get you?</em>
</p><p>For the first time since she’s known him, the Doctor looks sheepish. Or is that her pepper-addled brain making a simulacrum of the twelfth Doctor look sheepish?</p><p>“I’ve been trying to get into your steel trap of a brain for hours. It was the Trickster.”</p><p>
  <em>The who-ster?</em>
</p><p>“Old enemy of mine and Sarah Jane Smith’s. Has a tendency to mess about with my life and that of my companions, trying to change history. Apparently, he spiked the peppers with an hallucinogenic compound from some planet I can’t be bothered to look up the name of right now.”</p><p>
  <em>Because you’re out old like me.</em>
</p><p>“I think you meant to say ‘out cold’ and not make a crack about my apparent age. Vocal aphasia is one of the side effects. Actually, you appear to be wide awake in the TARDIS. I finally got you to sit still long enough for me to do a mind link.”</p><p>Clara walks up to the image of the Doctor and taps his shoulder. He seems real enough. She gives his shoulder a semi-playful-though-not-really punch. He winces.</p><p>
  <em>Don’t tell me you weren’t affected, too. That’s not fair. I want to be a Time Lord.</em>
</p><p>“Trust me, that is not something to aspire to. And I was affected. We’ll talk about that later. I woke up when I heard you singing.”</p><p>
  <em>Singing?</em>
</p><p>“Something about a telegram and a pilot and Australia. I was too busy stopping you from falling down the stairs when you started blowing kisses and bowing. And then you started singing <em>My Way</em> and yelling something about Missy being big, which is <em>just</em> what the universe needs. Then you started, uh, sort-of dancing. Not quite a gavotte, but who knows what people are into these days? You must be having one hell of a hallucination, Clara.”</p><p>
  <em>What? I was dancing? Oh, no, please tell me I didn’t…</em>
</p><p>(Clara’s attempt at trying to demonstrate twerking without actually twerking results in her doing a move that looks like Twist performed by someone who has never seen the Twist.)</p><p>“Don’t worry, I’ve seen worse at the UNIT Christmas Party. I have a memory of Benton dancing to <em>I’m Too Sexy</em> by Right Said Fred that just refuses to die, no matter how many times I regenerate.”</p><p>
  <em>So, how are you going to get me out of this insanity before I do something outside that finally eliminates whatever is left of my dignity?</em>
</p><p>“I can’t. Have to let the hallucinogen wear off naturally, otherwise it will cause brain damage.”</p><p>
  <em>But you said you snapped out of it.</em>
</p><p>“Like I said, brain damage. I won’t be able to yodel for a few weeks, but my superior Time Lord phys-”</p><p>
  <em>-Finish that sentence and you’re getting a harder punch, I don’t care what type of dream this is. So, what do I do for…</em>
</p><p>“…about eight more hours. I guess that is up to you. Are you scared, Clara?”</p><p>The Doctor suddenly looks concerned.</p><p>
  <em>Not really. Feel better now you’re sort-of here, but even before, I was more puzzled and annoyed than scared. And, now that I know this is my own pudding brain creating the hallucinations, downright embarrassed at my total lack of ability at singing and songwriting and let us not talk of the dancing again.</em>
</p><p>“Pudding brain is my line. And I thought that tune was catchy. <em>We know you’re not an also-ran/When it comes to acting w-</em>”</p><p>Clara puts her simulated hand cover the Doctor’s simulated mouth, stifling the horror.</p><p>
  <em>God, I thought this was an hallucination, not a nightmare!</em>
</p><p>The Doctor gently moves her hand away.</p><p>“Moving on … so now you know you have control over the hallucination, you can cater it to whatever you want it to be. The world is your oyster, Clara. Or, at least, this simulation of the world. You could conjure up someone you loved and lost. Or someone you love now. Spend time with them. You could visit Jane Austen and practice teaching her how to play Texas Hold’em. Got a favourite actor or actress you want to go to dinner with? It’s your call.”</p><p>
  <em>What will you be doing?</em>
</p><p>“I have … stuff happening. See you in eight hours.”</p><p>Before Clara can ask, “What stuff?” the Doctor pops out of existence. She puts a finger up to her lower lip and ponders.</p><p>
  <em>Eight hours, hmm?</em>
</p><p>***</p><p>Eight hours later, Clara sits bolt upright in a chaise lounge in the TARDIS mezzanine and takes a deep breath. She looks at her hands and snaps her fingers. She wriggles her toes. Then she gives herself a light pinch on the forearm and is reassured by the slight pain that causes.</p><p>“I’m back,” she calls out, happy that her voice is no longer in italics.</p><p>There is no reply from the console level below the mezzanine. “I said, I’m back!” she calls out again, louder.</p><p>She stands up on slightly wobbly legs and leans over the railing in time to see the Doctor spinning around the console like the proverbial mad man with a box. He is throwing levers left, right and centre and muttering a mixture of High Gallifreyan swear words (untranslatable by the TARDIS, but Clara knows them all) and English phrases such as “six bloody pilots.”</p><p>Clara stumbles down the steps and starts to fall forward as the TARDIS suddenly lurches. She catches herself on the edge of the console, approximately half a second after the Doctor realizes she is there.</p><p>“Ah, Clara, you’re awake! Good. I need you to press the button next to the fast-return switch when I tell you to.”</p><p>Clara moves into position. “What’s going on, Doctor?”</p><p>“I’ll tell you in a minute. Look at the scanner and tell me what you see.”</p><p>Clara complies and … “I just see a big blob of white behind us.”</p><p>“That’s not a ‘blob.’ That’s the screen trying to display approximately three million battleships in hot pursuit.”</p><p>Clara sputters. “Three- Three <em>million</em>? What did you do?”</p><p>“You always assume I did something, Clara,” the Doctor admonishes as he flips more switches. “On this rare occasion, however, your instincts are correct. I’ll tell you later. Push the button … now!”</p><p>She does so. The huge blob on the screen gets a tiny bit smaller. “What did that do?” she asks.</p><p>“Engaged warp drive. That’ll leave ‘em in the dust.”</p><p>Clara raises an eyebrow. “Warp drive? This isn’t <em>Star Trek</em>.”</p><p>“Faster to say than its real term,” the Doctor says as he continues to flip switches rapidly.</p><p>“Why not just dematerialize and leave them behind in the, er, time-dust?”</p><p>“Won’t do any good. They can travel in time, too. I’ll need to warn the High Council about them if I ever get back home.” He studies a monitor that still shows the three-million-vessel white blob in hot pursuit, albeit at a greater distance than before. “They’ll just keep chasing us, so I need to keep just far enough ahead of them to do … this!”</p><p>He dives under the console and pulls a lever. Instantly, every monitor and readout in the console room dies and most of the lights go dark; the only illumination comes from the roundels embedded into the walls.</p><p>“What did you do?” Clara says, living up to her reputation as “the asking questions one.”</p><p>The Doctor shushes her and puts a finger to his lips. “Silent running,” he whispers.</p><p>Clara whispers back: “We’re in space. Sonar doesn’t work out there.”</p><p>The Doctor sighs and resumes his normal tone of voice. “No sense of the dramatic, you schoolteachers,” he says, grumpily.</p><p>“I repeat for the fourth time: what did you do? The last time you pulled that lever, you turned the TARDIS into the cube from <em>Hellraiser</em> and it took Rigsy, me, and a bunch of Boneless to fix it.”</p><p>“That was an emergency-emergency. This time, I just have to pull the lever again and we’ll be back to normal. Meanwhile, our friends out there saw a brilliant flash of energy that, as far as they were concerned, marked the end of both their quarry and the war.”</p><p>“What war?”</p><p>The Doctor gives Clara a Hagrid-style “shouldn’t have said that” look before resigning himself to spilling the beans. “Well, uh, you see, while you were having a fun old time in your hallucination, singing and, uh, dancing…”</p><p>“I said to speak no more of the dancing …”</p><p>“…anyway, while you were doing all that, I managed to hallucinate myself into starting a little bit of a war.”</p><p>“Why am I not surprised? As war-starters go, you’re pretty efficient. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes before you came into my hallucination. You trying for yet another Guinness record?”</p><p>The Doctor gives her his patented “brace yourself for a lecture” look: “Have you ever fallen asleep in front of the TV just as a movie starts and you have entire dreams before waking up and realizing the opening credits of the film are still playing?”</p><p>“Happens to me all the time. I once had an entire day at school pass through my mind before <em>The Ten Commandments</em> got to the ‘Directed by Cecil B. DeMille’ part.”</p><p>“Well, this was the reverse. It might have felt like ten minutes to you, but before I was able to reach you in that maze of a mind you call home, you’d been out for about twelve hours.” He nods at her legs. “That’s why you probably found it a bit tricky to walk just now because, even though it only felt like about eight hours for you, you’d actually been flat on your back for about a day and a half.”</p><p>“So, what happened?”</p><p>The Doctor points at the console. “In my own hallucination, I had the Daleks attacking the TARDIS. They got through the defences and one of them …” He suddenly stops talking and makes a show of checking the digital countdown clock that is one of the only pieces of technology apparently still working within the console room.</p><p>Clara has seen him evade answers before. She knows she’ll regret asking, but does so anyway: “One of them what, Doctor?”</p><p>The Doctor does not reply.</p><p>“We agreed never to do this again. Don’t lie to me.”</p><p>“One of them said ‘Kill the spare’ and ejected you into space. You were still out cold from the pepper and I couldn’t stop it. It was like what happened to you on Skaro all over again, but without Missy pulling one of her tricks to save you.”</p><p>Clara suddenly doesn’t feel so bad that her hallucination mostly focused on an embarrassing moment from her youth and ribald mythical creatures from the 1930s.</p><p>“But that was just an illusion, Doctor, and so was what happened to me in your version, right? You just created a scene from a <em>Harry Potter</em> movie, and I’m here and I’m safe and I promise I’ll never again go wandering in space without a spacesuit on. Once was enough and my molars still hurt when it rains.”</p><p>The Doctor sighs. “After-the-fact, it’s always easy to dismiss these things and make a joke of them. For you, everything felt completely real at first too, right?”</p><p>No comeback to that. “So, what did you do?” Clara asks.</p><p>“Centuries of pent-up frustrations came out. It’s a long story, but after I … got rid of the Daleks, and be grateful they were just illusions … I decided to take the TARDIS back in time to prevent them from ever having existed in the first place.”</p><p>“I admit I’m still a bit of a newbie about these things, but that’s kind of against the rules, isn’t it? The First Commandment of time travel? And didn’t you tell me you tried that once before with them, anyway?”</p><p>“In my head, I didn’t care. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’d just lost my best friend, you see.”</p><p>Clara leans against his arm and squeezes it. “Well, doesn’t change the fact that none of that was real,” she says, softly.</p><p>“Twerking.”</p><p>“Huh?” Clara pulls back. The Doctor might just have randomly called out, “<em>Burma!</em>” </p><p>“That’s what they call the style of dance you were doing, correct? Twerking?”</p><p>Clara blushes. Oh, that. “In my head, I wasn’t the one twerking, it was … a group of dancing devils that looked like the Three Stooges.”</p><p>The Doctor doesn’t have a response to that.</p><p>“It was something from my childhood,” Clara elaborates. “Some dream I had. Only their dancing when I was a kid was more <em>Blue Danube</em> and less … <em>Anaconda</em>.”</p><p>She can see the Doctor either trying to register what must have either been a terrifying mental image, or trying to process what she meant by <em>Anaconda</em>. His shrug a moment later might as well have been accompanied by a <em>ding!</em> sound effect.</p><p>“My point is, Clara, you were dancing for real, and singing for real—others in your hallucination might have done the actions as far as you were aware, but, out here, it was all you … for better or for worse.” He sidesteps the half-hearted swat Clara aims at his shoulder. “So, when I hallucinated that I was going back in time to get rid of the Daleks, I … took the TARDIS back in time, for real, and as far as I was concerned, I was going to wipe out the Daleks before Davros created them. And this time, I was determined to succeed.”</p><p>“But those aren’t Dalek ships, are they?”</p><p>The Doctor looks sheepish. “That’s the point. In my hallucinatory state, I just picked co-ordinates at random from the vortex speed-dial list.”</p><p>“Wait … we have a speed dial?” For some reason, this is momentarily more interesting to Clara than the Doctor starting a war on her behalf.</p><p>The Doctor ignores the question. “Obviously, we didn’t go back to Skaro. But the system I ended up in was just winding down a war with another system and hadn’t got to the scaling-back-the-military-and-retraining-ex-soldiers-to-become-accountants stage. So, when I swooped in and broadcast to anyone that would listen that I was the Doctor of War and the Oncoming Storm and that I was prepared to lay waste to their world, they didn’t take too kindly to it. Even blitzed out of my mind, I knew three million-to-one odds were not the best, so I ran like the clappers and the adrenaline boost from that was enough to snap me out of it. I had enough time to check in on you before the chase began. Been running for hours.”</p><p>“So, would you have done it?”</p><p>“Done what?”</p><p>“Laid waste to that world.”</p><p>The Doctor takes a deep breath. “Clara, I honestly don’t know. Fortunately, as you well know, the TARDIS is extremely limited in terms of actual weaponry. I mean, other than water pistols. But since it’s another dimension in here, she can’t be scanned from outside, so they had no way of knowing if I had a bucket of Tsar Bombas ready to rain down on their capital city. There wasn’t much I could have done to them, but I don’t blame them for coming after me.”</p><p>The Doctor has taken a seat on the stairs leading to he mezzanine level. The way he steeples his fingers and partially covers his face gives Clara a sudden wave of sadness. She sits down next to him and wraps one arm around is shoulder, and uses her free hand to cup his cheek so that he looks at her.</p><p>“All this because you thought I was dead?”</p><p>The Doctor nods. “I guess so. Luckily, I stopped before I could get into any more mischief. How about you?”</p><p>“How about I, what?”</p><p>“How did you keep yourself busy for those last eight hours? Find a good library? Teach Jane how to cheat at cards? Rewrite the final <em>Harry Potter</em> book so Harry and Hermione get together?”</p><p>Clara smiles sweetly. “I had a few ideas, but I decided to spend the time with my best friend, instead.”</p><p>The Doctor almost looks disappointed for a moment, then chuckles. “One can only imagine what schemes Nina cooked up for you in that brain of yours.”</p><p>“Not Nina! I’ll give you a clue. He’s tall, has intense eyes, wild hair, and speaks with an amazing Scottish accent.”</p><p>“You know Billy Connolly?”</p><p>Clara sighs (though it actually comes out sounding more like an <em>arrgh!</em>). “I give up,” she says with a smile as she squints into the dimness of the console room. “So what do we do know? I like romantic mood lighting as much as the next girl, but we can’t stay like this forever.”</p><p>The Doctor takes a breath and stands up. “You’re right. I think it’s about time to rejoin the universe. The ships should have turned around by now.” He returns to the console and reaches under it to pull the lever.</p><p>The mood lighting remains unchanged, the monitors still deactivated.</p><p>“Was something supposed to not-happen?” Clara asks.</p><p>The Doctor throws his arms up and addresses the TARDIS, “Oh, come on! Of all times for you to be persnickety. What have I done to deserve this?”</p><p>Clara can’t help but laugh. “You must really be upset, dropping the ‘persnickety’ bomb. You kiss the TARDIS with that mouth?”</p><p>The Doctor sighs and smiles back at her. “You should hear me when I get really angry. I once called an accountant for the Shadow Proclamation a scallywag after he sent me a bill for damage to a Judoon ship. It’s all in the attitude. I’m just annoyed. And there’s not much we can do about the Trickster, which really annoys me. He tends not to leave much by way of a trail, and I’m trying to figure out how messing with our minds could have changed history, which is his usual motive. Maybe he somehow knew I’d go after the Daleks? He’ll slip up one of these days, but not today. Fortunately, he gets bored easily, so he’s probably lost interest in us by now.”</p><p>Clara is milling about by the table where this tale began. After a moment, she begins idling back in the Doctor’s direction. “So, we’re stuck?”</p><p>“Fortunately, the TARDIS is hard-wired to revert to normal automatically in about three hours, but until then, yeah, we’re stuck. Not much to do. At least we don’t have to worry about life support this time. But we can’t even call up Netflix.”</p><p>Clara smiles sweetly. “Well, there is <em>something</em> we can do to kill the time,” she says, as she puts one arm around his waist.</p><p>“Oh? What do you have in mind, Clara Oswald?” the Doctor replies, his voice sounding lower than usual.</p><p>Clara reveals her free hand, which is holding the dainty Portmeirion china saucer she’d just picked up, upon which sits two sad-looking, shrivelled objects vaguely resembling bananas that have been hit by a tissue-compression eliminator.</p><p>“Are you ready for a rematch?” she says.</p><p>Clara Oswald’s sly smile is unmatchable.</p><p>The Doctor’s reply is unprintable.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Concordance time (quite a few items this time around!):</p><p>The "dancing devils" originate from my teenage years when my best friend and I occasionally had all-night movie binge-watching sessions and then would go to get breakfast afterwards. I shouldn't have been driving this one time but I was young and dumb and I was half-asleep at the wheel and my friend said "Look out for the dancing devils" and for a second I thought they were real as I swerved to avoid them. My friend drove the rest of the way to the McDonald's.</p><p>The hot pepper challenge is a Youtube staple, though this scenario was inspired by a particular channel called "Good Mythical Morning" where the hosts (Rhett and Link) did a ghost pepper challenge and the results were hilarious. The ice cream and the reference to "biting the toe of Satan" comes from this show.</p><p>Jenna Coleman has some Scottish heritage, which in my stories I have incorporated into Clara.</p><p>Armitage singing Karaoke is inspired by me once seeing a middle-aged man with huge sideburns doing a Karaoke of Elvis' Burning Love at a tiny pub in Blackwood, Wales, back in 1991.</p><p>The Carolina Reaper is real and the information here is taken from Wikipedia and other web sources. Anyone who has seen the film "Scanners" knows EXACTLY what scene I'm referring to.</p><p>Some aspects of Clara's hallucination incorporate things I remember from high school. This includes "purple elves have no feet" (a non sequitur that either I or a friend wrote; 35 years later I can't remember), and the first stanza of a poem I wrote back around Grade 9, though I put the blame on the Series 8 character Courtney Woods this time. Clara's percussive yardstick is based on something a history teacher I had in high school used to do in order to get our attention.</p><p>"Pineapple watermelon" etc. is an actual thing that was used in a Marvel Comic I read back in the 70s (can't remember which one, maybe "Spidey Super Stories"), complete with footnote explaining its purpose.</p><p>If you got deja vu with the "Don't shake my hand" bit, yes, it's become a running gag in recent stories. Which will probably stop here!</p><p>I draw on some of Jenna Coleman's real-life experiences, with the Old Vic section referring to Bill Pullman and Sally Field, her co-stars in the Old Vic play "All My Sons", and the TV pilot is inspired by the fact Jenna did play an Australian in an unsold (and, as of 2020, never shown) sitcom pilot shot in America. The bits about Clara being awful in it are made up for this story; I've no idea how well Jenna actually performed in real life.</p><p>The rubber chicken vs Cybermen incident can be researched further in my story "The Curse of Caring."</p><p>Die-hard Three Stooges fans will know who Emil is. </p><p>The Trickster is a villain that was first referenced in the Virgin New Adventures novel "Love and War" and later became a recurring villain in the Sarah Jane Adventures series, and was also involved in the Series 4 Who episode "Turn Left". </p><p>Episodes referenced in passing include "Journey's End" (six pilots), "The Magician's Apprentice" (Clara's "death" on Skaro), "Flatline" (TARDIS siege mode - and yes in that episode it did resemble the cube featured in Hellraiser) and "Genesis of the Daleks" (going back in time to stop the Daleks from existing). </p><p>I have experienced compressed time as described with "Ten Commandments". I fell asleep as the DVD started and I had an entire, lengthy (so it seemed) dream, only to wake up to find the credits still running!</p><p>"Burma!" is a Monty Python reference. "Anaconda" was a popular song by Nicki Minaj a few years back that had copious amounts of twerking in the music video. </p><p>Nina is a character mentioned in "Asylum of the Daleks", and featured in my own series of stories called "Smol Bean".</p></blockquote></div></div>
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